


the smell of coffee runs through my veins

by elsaclack



Series: collateral beauty [8]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, also this is my entry for the summer 2019 fic exchange for b99fandomevents!!!, basically jake and amy are in love all the time always so, coffee shop AU, here we are, so what we got here is your basic barista/detective au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 15:02:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20099128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elsaclack/pseuds/elsaclack
Summary: or,five times jake smells like fresh coffee grounds (and one time he doesn’t)





	the smell of coffee runs through my veins

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WinnieTherPooh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinnieTherPooh/gifts).

> hi @winnietherpooh!!! so i wasn’t originally your assigned writer for the @b99fandomevents summer 2019 fic exchange, but they unfortunately had to drop out due to some unforeseen circumstances, so i stepped in!! i loved all of your ideas, but i decided to go with a jake/amy coffee shop au (with a liiiiiiiittle bit of jake/rosa friendship thrown in for good measure). it’s also the first time i’ve successfully finished a 5 times fic ahhh!!! i hope you like it!!!

**He smells like fresh coffee grounds.**

She isn’t sure what to do with that, at first. She just honestly wasn’t that into coffee. It always played the role of a last-resource fuel to keep her awake when all else failed - never something to be independently enjoyed in an otherwise leisurely setting.

It makes sense, then, that she falls in love with a man who loves coffee.

**He smells like fresh coffee grounds** on the morning she meets him, looking haggard and disheveled at five in the morning, the stains on his flannel shirt just visible in the early morning light. Shattered glass litters the sidewalk just outside of his coffee shop’s door, catching the flickering street lights above them like urban diamonds forgotten in the rough. There’s another man, a shorter, older-looking man, pacing back and forth in the street just beyond the curb, looking more like a worried first-time father outside of a delivery room than a man whose place of business was robbed overnight.

Rosa is busy examining the busted windowpane in the door, so Amy turns to the shop-owner - whose stained flannel shirt smells like fresh coffee grounds despite him not even entering the store yet that morning.

“My name is Detective Santiago, and I’ll be the lead detective on this case.” 

He shakes her hand and manages to flash a smile - albeit a shaky one. “I’m Jake,” he says, “Jake Peralta.”

His hand is warm, and when she pulls her hand back to her side, the faintest scent of coffee grounds wafts toward her.

It’s a B&E - security cameras from the flower shop across the alley caught images of three perps hauling off through the back door with armfuls of merchandise and a particularly heavy-looking espresso machine - and within four hours Amy and Rosa are cuffing all three and calling in assistance to recover the merchandise from an apartment in the Bronx. The espresso machine is toast - apparently they dropped it three times in their attempt to escape unseen - but other than the general stench of cigarettes clinging to the merchandise, everything else is relatively unscathed.

The open sign hanging in the shop window is turned off, the front door is locked, but Amy manages to spot Jake through the window inside the shop as she approaches. He darts to the door immediately to let her in, looking anxious and hopeful in a way that makes her stomach bottom out despite her best efforts to remain unaffected. He up and hugs her when she tells him they solved it - and it’s like the scent of fine Colombian coffee has come to life and enveloped her fully.

(She wonders, briefly, if this is the kind of sensation Manny gets when he talks about food being so good that it’s all-consuming.)

“Do you like coffee?” he asks once they’ve parted.

“I love it,” she hears herself say.

His grin is brilliant, nearly blinding, and he trips over his own shoelaces as he quickly backs away from her. “Great,” he says as he rounds the far end of the front counter. “This one’s on the house. In fact, all of ‘em are. Forever.”

“Oh - you’re very generous, but I can’t accept -”

“Sure, you can,” he interrupts loudly. “Your money’s no good here, detective.”

She stares for a beat, biting the inside of her cheek to tamp down her smile. “It’s, uh, Amy,” she finally says - and some of the frenetic energy that overtook him moments earlier seems to dissipate, if only slightly.

“Amy,” he repeats, voice low and warm in a way that sends a thrill down her spine.

**He smells like fresh coffee grounds** every morning she returns - which is often, for a person who doesn’t drink coffee. The windowpane is replaced after a few days and the shop is reopened for business, and every morning she stops by on her way to work, he greets her loudly by name and introduces her to every other customer in the shop as the detective who saved the store.

“I’m just sorry I couldn’t save the espresso machine,” she says on the fourth morning, pointing up to the chalk-written menu hanging behind the counter - at the _COMING SOON_ written over the line that advertised espressos before.

“It’s fine, it’s why I’ve got insurance,” he shrugs. “New machine should be here by Thursday of next week, which means we’ll have it up and running for the Friday morning rush. Here, try this one - I added a couple of shots of cinnamon. I think you’re gonna really like it.”

(She does.)

Charles, Jake’s cook, takes a shining to Amy right away - in addition to the free coffee, she often finds herself juggling several pastry bags on her walk to her car. Some are certainly better than others; while Jake seems to be learning about what Amy likes and dislikes and customizing her drink accordingly, Charles tends to be a far more adventurous eater and seizes any opportunity to expand Amy’s palate.

“It’s a poppy seed bagel with a wasabi-infused cream cheese, drizzled with a caramelized citrus simple syrup,” he tells her proudly one morning while loading the bagel into a pastry bag. He’s pressed up against the edge of the counter, leaning toward Amy as he speaks; it’s how he misses Jake’s exaggerated gag from by the register, earning a nervous laugh from Amy. “I know the flavors don’t sound like they’ll go together, but trust me, it’s _delicious_. You’ll love it.”

(She doesn’t.)

“You can tell him you hate it, y’know,” Jake tells her after Charles walks away.

She shoots him a look as she straightens her blazer. “I don’t wanna break his heart,” she sighs, and he nods in understanding. “Besides, not everything he gives me is inedible. I like poppy seed bagels. And the citrus stuff actually sounded kind of good -”

“It’s really adorable that you’re trying to be gentle with him, but I hired him to make, like, blueberry scones and chocolate chip muffins. Stuff that normal people want to eat when they go to a coffee shop. If you don’t nip this in the bud, he’s gonna want to try to sell that stuff again and I’m not about to have that fight for the _fourth _time -”

“Alright, alright,” she interrupts, briefly raising both hands in defeat before snatching her briefcase, the pastry bag, and the to-go cup of coffee from the counter. “I’ll tell him the next time I’m in.”

“So, tomorrow,” Jake says.

Heat drips from the tips of her ears, but there is no judgement or derision in his expression - just expectancy, as if her presence is a given. “Actually, it’s - tomorrow is, um, my day off,” she stammers, “so I don’t know if -”

“Oh.” She’s fairly certain there’s disappointment in his voice - his shoulders definitely dropped, his gaze definitely lowered to the countertop between them. “Sorry, that was presumptuous -”

“No, no, it’s - I mean, I’ve been in here every other morning this week, so -”

“Well, uh, hey, have a good day off -”

“I might still -”

“You don’t have to -”

“I’ll be here.”

He pauses, a crease appearing between his brows. “Are you sure?”

“I’ll be here,” she repeats, “but maybe not ‘til after the morning rush.”

He smiles, the dimples in his cheek flashing. “I’ll see you then,” he says with a two-fingered salute.

**He smells like fresh coffee grounds** at the end of the day, battle-worn and weary but smiling and groaning in all the right places as she recounts her harrowing arrest of a man with a bag of human ears on the subway earlier that day. The hysteria of it all had taken up most of her day - she was only able to break away from paperwork at eight o’clock this evening, putting her on the coffee shop’s front stoop at precisely nine-oh-three, three minutes after closing.

Which of course didn’t stop Jake from holding the door open for her as he insisted she come inside. It turns out he had quite the day as well - his afternoon barista called in sick, leaving him with a sixteen-hour workday she unwittingly extended. “Stop apologizing,” he tells her as he passes her a mug full of steaming decaf coffee. “This isn’t work.”

His eyes are bloodshot and his eyelids seem to stick together every time he blinks, but he’s awake, he’s invested in her story, and there’s something a little different about the way he smells tonight - like the fresh coffee ground scent infused in his very atoms has blended with something spicier, something tangier. He’s slouching in his seat, legs splayed out wildly beneath the table, and even with one leg bouncing he’s practically emanating exhaustion.

“I should go,” Amy says for the third time. “You’re practically falling asleep over there.”

“You don’t have to,” he says, voice quiet and worn. “I think I have some stuff here to help me stay awake.”

She laughs, and he grins, eyes twinkling in the low light. “You’ve had a really long day, Jake.”

“So have you,” he reminds her, tone taking on the faintest edge of a disgruntled toddler refusing to nap. “You don’t see me trying to kick you out.”

“I don’t have to be at work at five in the morning,” she reminds him, and he rolls his eyes, a strangled grunt escaping his throat. “You really, _really _should go get some sleep.”

“I don’t wanna,” he mumbles, crossing his arms a little tighter over his chest. “This’s been the best part of my day. I don’t want it to end.”

“_I’m _the best part of your day?” she asks skeptically, ignoring the now-familiar thrill in the pit of her stomach to focus on the blush igniting in his cheeks. “I didn’t know you _loved _me so much, Peralta.”

“Whatever,” he grumbles, “I had a bunch of, like, snooty soccer moms come in and bitch me out because I didn’t make their mocha chai lattes with extra whip and extra sprinkles at the exact right temperature, and then they all blasted the shop with one-star reviews on Yelp,” he leans forward to bury his face in his hands. “And then Daisy called out sick, and Charles tried to crucify me over some oregano or something. Today sucked, and you’re, like, super nice, and I like talking to you because you don’t yell at me about coffee or oregano.”

It’s quiet for a beat - and then Amy finds herself leaning forward, her fingers closing over his left forearm. His skin his just as warm as she remembers; his eyes liquid and piercing as he peers at her through his fingers. “I’m sorry today sucked,” she murmurs sincerely. “D’you want me to track all of those soccer moms down and arrest them for disorderly conduct?”

He snorts and drops his hands to the table, and she quickly retracts her hand. “Maybe,” he says with a pseudo-thoughtful nod. He studies her face for a moment, his gaze darting over her face as she pulls a long drink from her coffee. “Thanks, Ames,” he says softy.

It’s quiet enough that she almost misses it, but he holds her gaze when she meets his eyes. “For what?” she asks.

He shrugs. “Being you. You just - you always know what to say.”

“Well that’s definitely not true, but - you’re welcome.”

He hugs her right outside the coffee shop, and she hugs him back - he’s warm and soft in that unique half-asleep way, and she curls her fingers into the loose folds of his flannel shirt, fighting back the urge to squeeze him to her as hard as she can. He’s slow to pull away, slow to retreat; it’s not until he’s a good ten feet away that he finally raises his hand in farewell, nearly tripping over a stray cafe table from the bistro next door to the shop before turning his back and walking away in earnest.

She can still smell that spicy, tangy _something _wafting off of her blazer when she gets home.

**He smells like fresh coffee grounds** when Amy finally convinces Rosa to come back to the coffee shop with her - a good four months after the case officially ended. By then Jake’s perfected Amy’s entirely unique order and has had it added to the menu; _The Santiago Special_ now graces the bottom of the left hand side of the chalkboard, written in Daisy’s perfect looping scrawl.

“Detective Diaz!” Jake leans across the counter to shake Rosa’s hand as they approach, looking every bit as thrilled as Amy hoped he would be. “Welcome back! It’s good to see you again, how have you been?”

“Fine.” Rosa grunts, already scanning the menu over Jake’s head. “What d’you recommend?”

“Well, what do you like?”

“Coffee.”

It’s silent for a beat - and then Jake seems to realize she won’t be expanding any further. “I can respect that.” he says, casting beneath the counter for the already-opened bags of coffee grounds they keep stored there. “Sweet or savory?”

She ponders it a moment, lips pursing slightly. “Sweet.” she finally says.

“You got it. Regular for you, Ames?”

“Obviously.”

He flashes her a grin over the countertop before setting about working, and Rosa leans against the edge of the counter, seemingly taking in the rest of the shop. “It’s nice,” she finally says as she returns her attention to Amy’s face. “I can see why you like it so much. Is all of this artwork local?”

“The paintings are,” Jake confirms as he measures out coffee grounds. “The photography isn’t. A lot of those are stock photos that came with the frames - I just needed to fill empty space when I first moved in here, but I didn’t have the budget for legitimate photography. I’ve been meaning to take them down, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

“There’s a farmer’s market not too far from here that sometimes has a photographer selling in a booth,” says Rosa. “She’s pretty good. You should check her out.”

“You go to a farmer’s market?” Amy asks incredulously.

Jake snorts as Rosa rolls her eyes. “I’ll definitely check her out. Are there any painters there? Like, murialists, I should say?”

Rosa frowns thoughtfully. “I don’t know,” she says. “I mean I’ve seen some people selling paintings, but I’ve never stopped and asked. I usually go for the fruit, the locally sourced honey, and the pottery.”

“You’re into _pottery_?”

“No.”

Jake pauses, a peculiar grin on his face. “Aren’t you partners? Shouldn’t you guys know, like, _everything _about each other? Or did the cop movies lie to me about that, too?”

“Well up until about sixty seconds ago, I thought we _did _know everything about each other,” Amy sniffs. Slowly, Rosa shakes her head, eyes never leaving the corner of the menu board. “Is your name even Rosa?”

Rosa turns her head, holding Amy’s gaze. “No. It’s Emily Goldfinch.”

“Oh, _ha-ha_, very funny.”

“I’m not kidding.” Before Amy can get another word in, Rosa returns her attention to Jake. “Are you thinking of putting a mural on that wall?”

“Yeah, but I really want to find a local artist who won’t charge out the ass for it, y’know?”

“Amy paints.”

“Wha- I don’t - I mean -”

Amy splutters as they both turn to look at her. “You paint?” Jake asks, the corners of his lips quirked upwards.

“I mean I - I sort of - I’m not _that_ good -”

“She’s excellent,” Rosa interrupts, “I’ve seen some of her stuff. I think it would fit in with the vibe you’ve got going in here.”

“Well, I’d probably pay out the ass for _you_ to paint a mural in here,” Jake says, abandoning the coffee grounds to plant both hands on the counter. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, of course, but I’d love to talk to you about it.”

“Um - I mean -”

“Take some time to think about it,” he says, moving to resume making their coffees. “I’ll ask again later.”

Amy’s still staring when Jake slides their cups across the counter - on Amy’s sleeve, he’s written _Ames_, and on Rosa’s, he’s written _Emily??_

“I like him.” Rosa says once they’re back in Amy’s car. “He’s funny. You should paint the mural.”

“I don’t know if I’m good enough to paint an entire mural,” she mutters, tucking her cup into her cupholder and starting the car.

“You won’t ever know until you try. And I think that this is the place where you should really try.”

There’s something significant to Rosa’s tone, something meaningful in the slant of her head and the angle of her brows, but there’s traffic coming, and they’re three minutes late coming back from their break, so Amy just heaves a sigh as she pulls out of her parking spot.

**He smells like fresh coffee grounds** when he hands her a shirt with the shop’s logo on it - a simple, minimalist drawing of a coffee mug on a plate in side profile, thin white lines against dark blue material - and he’s grinning like a fool when she pulls it on over her ratty painting clothes.

“You’re officially on payroll,” he declares, dragging a table backward to make more room. “Welcome aboard.”

“Thank god, I was _really _struggling to make ends meet.”

He laughs outright at that, pausing halfway through dragging two chairs away. “Please,” he says once he’s recovered, “you probably have, like, eight savings accounts.”

“I have _one_, thank you very much.”

He’s still chortling as he drags the last table away - leaving an empty stretch of wall sprawled before her, a slate-grey canvas that stretches from floor to ceiling. She’s got sketches taped around the outer edges of her work space and a respectable collection of paints and brushes clustered together on the floor to her left; from the corner of her eye she sees Jake draw even with her to her right as she studies the space, staring at the wall as well. “It’s gonna look great,” he assures her.

“I just feel bad that you have to be closed for two full days.” she says as she turns toward him. “That’s a lot of money you’re losing out on.”

“I’d rather miss out on two days of business and have an incredible piece of artwork done by an incredible person than be open for one more day with lame stock photos on the wall.” he says earnestly, and the tips of her ears burn. “This is gonna bring more people in, Ames. We’ll make our money back in a week.”

“What if the painting sucks?”

“We paint over it with the stuff I have in storage and you start over.”

“That’s another day wasted, though.”

“What are you talking about? I don’t have to deal with any annoying Brooklyn hipsters _and _I get to hang out with you. That’s not what I’d call a wasted day.”

She bites the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling too broadly as she turns back toward the wall. “I’ve never done anything like this before.” she reminds him, voice small.

He touches her shoulder, fingers curving over the upper ridge and squeezing as his thumb sweeps down her arm several times. “It’s gonna look _great_.” he says again. “I’m really, really excited.”

He retreats to a chair dragged to the opposite wall and sits, and Amy inhales deeply, praying he can’t read her nerves despite her shaking hands. _It’s a painting, Amy_, she reminds herself. _Relax._

The first touch of paint to the wall is agonizing, but a split-second later she’s liberated; Jake kicks on music over the shop’s speakers from his phone and she’s back in the groove, like she never left her last college painting class. She pauses only occasionally over the next several hours - for bathroom breaks and lunch and once, briefly, when paint dripped into her coffee - and by the end of the day she’s studying a nearly-completed mural, taking notes on her sketch for areas that need touch-ups when she comes back tomorrow.

“Okay,” Amy says, folding her sketch and tucking it into her pocket with one hand while tucking her pencil behind her ear with the other. “It’s not all-the-way done yet, but it’s mostly done. I just need to do a couple of touch-ups in some spots once the paint is dry, but that’ll take less than an hour tomorrow. What do you think?”

Jake’s silent, an unreadable expression on his face, when Amy turns toward him. He seems almost winded as he slowly stands; his eyes follow each line of the mural, sweeping up and over and down and up again. It’s pretty abstract, considering her penchant for still-lifes, more of an explosion of muted pastels in sharp geometric shapes that fade back into the grey of the wall along the outermost edges. “I love it,” he breathes.

There isn’t a single modicum of insincerity about him, so she tamps down a smile and turns back toward the mural. “I wanted it to feel like Brooklyn, and like the shop itself, which is why it’s kind of modern-looking and has a lot of sharp edges and clean lines, but…I also wanted it to feel the way that I feel when I’m here. Which is why I used pastels.”

From the corner of her eye, she sees him draw up even with her; he’s no longer looking at the mural. “What’s important about pastels?” he murmurs.

“Well, they’re - they’re soft. Cool, but not cold - they’re refreshing, like an oasis. It’s like an unexpected bright spot in the midst of a lot of sameness. They’re sweet, and calming, and - and I just - I really, really, _really _like them.”

She can’t bring herself to look him in the eye, but she can hear his sharp intake of breath. Tension radiates off of him in waves, and it’s suddenly near-impossible to draw a breath. “I love it,” he repeats, softer than before, and the too-familiar thrill bottoming out in her belly feels like the opening of a bottomless cavern and the smell of coffee grounds grows stronger as he leans closer -

A sharp knock on the window behind her has them both jumping backwards - an unfamiliar face is pressed against the glass, peering inside. “Are you open?” she asks as she jiggles the locked doorknob.

“No.” Jake says back loudly, stepping around Amy to point to the darkened open sign. Amy watches him go, one hand over her heart, the other pressed to her suddenly burning cheek. “We’re not open again until day after tomorrow.”

“Can I get a coffee to go, then?”

“What? No, we’re closed. We’re not making coffee today.”

“There are two of you in there, why can’t one of you make me a coffee?”

“Because we’re _closed _and we don’t have any coffee to make today. Come back on Tuesday and we’ll have some for you.”

“This is ridiculous, I thought this place was supposed to have good service!”

“It _does_. When it’s _open_.”

The would-be customer rolls her eyes and storms off, shouting obscenities and promises to drink only Starbucks moving forward as she goes, and Jake watches her go with his hands on his hips. “There goes another one-star review. You see what I deal with every day?” he mutters as he turns back to Amy.

“Well, at least your place has a reputation for good service,” she tries.

“Oh, you and your silver linings,” he says with an affectionate smile.

The heat still burning in the tips of her ears has spilled down to her cheeks now; slowly, eyes never leaving his face, she steps backwards. “I should - I should let you go -”

“Right, yeah, it’s nine,” he murmurs, glancing at the clock above the front door to confirm. “I’ll, uh, walk you to your car?”

“You’re parked way further away, I should be offering to walk you to your car.”

They both laugh, Amy’s filtered with nerves, and in the dim lighting she can see his throat moving as he swallows. “Maybe - maybe I could walk you to your car, and then you can give me a ride to mine?”

“That’s fair,” she concedes with a nod.

They’re in the front seat of her car ten minutes later, parked behind his beat up old Mustang four blocks away from the shop. He’s in the midst of recounting an exchange not unlike the one they just had with another customer, imitating a high-pitched Long Island accent perfectly with a comically distorted face, a smile twitching across his face with each new peal of laughter from Amy. The tension from earlier has not dissipated, but she finds she doesn’t mind it here - not with him sitting so close, smelling so good, smiling at her like _that_.

“It’s late,” he finally sighs, patting his palms against his thighs.

It’s not, not really. She’s off tomorrow. “A little,” she murmurs, hoping her reluctance to leave isn’t as evident in her voice as it feels.

He smiles, warm and affectionate, and lets his head fall back against the seat. “The mural is really beautiful,” he says softly. “I can’t wait to see it again tomorrow.”

It’s hard to tell with what limited light is spilling into the cab of her car, but she’s fairly certain he’s looking at her lips; she swallows thickly, and his eyes dart back up to meet hers. “Me either,” she whispers.

She’s not sure if it’s him, or her, or the gravitational pull tugging at her very heart, but the next thing she knows is his lips on hers and his fingers in her hair. He tastes like cocoa and indulgence, like every sweet thing in her life; he sighs against her and shifts closer, and the familiar scent of fresh coffee grounds envelopes her every sense.

**He smells like soap,** like clean earth, like fresh rain falling on grass and trees, like something spicy and tangy. He’s awake when she opens her eyes - he’s been watching her sleep, she realizes with a touch of embarrassment.

The look of awe-struck wonder in his eyes doesn’t allow the embarrassment to last for long.

“Hi,” he murmurs as she shifts her head on her pillow to look at him more directly.

She laughs and he flushes pink, head dropping down just far enough that the still-damp curls at his hairline brush against her arm. She bites down on the inside of her cheek to keep from reaching out to touch his hair - before realizing that she can do that now, probably.

So she does.

He lifts his head just slightly the moment she cards her fingers through, and his expression is so soft and so affectionate she’s certain her knees would have given out from under her were she standing. “You smell different,” she whispers.

“Different…bad different?”

“No, good. But different. You usually smell like coffee.”

“Well, I typically try not to _bathe _in it,” he mutters, and his fingers gently close over her elbow bent up against the mattress. “But it’s hard not to smell like coffee all the time when you own a coffee shop.”

“Hey, I’m not complaining,” she says, grinning as she ruffles his hair. “I’ve actually always loved the way coffee smelled, even if the taste is kind of so-so.”

He furrows his brow, and a split-second later she feels her stomach bottom out. “The taste is kind of _so-so_?” he repeats, and she retracts her hand to pull his comforter up over her head. “Amy, _do you not like coffee?_”

There’s laughter in his voice and the mattress beneath them is quaking, and she lets out a groan she’s sure is comically muffled on the other side of the comforter. “I’m - it’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just - before we met, I never really - I mean I _did_, but only when I was, like, on the verge of passing out asleep at work - I just never really -”

“You said - on the day we met - that you _love _coffee.”

She flips the comforter down with enough force to bounce them both slightly, earning another volley of giggles from Jake. “Well, I do _now_!” she half-shouts.

“But you didn’t then?”

“What was I supposed to do? You were really cute and you were being so sweet and I had no idea we’d - that you and I would -”

“Oh, my god, you are _so cute_ when you’re all flustered,” he interrupts, lightly poking her upper arm before curling his fingers around her bicep in earnest. “I’m really glad you lied about liking coffee.”

She rolls her eyes, but can’t fight back the smile spreading across her face. “Me, too. Even though I have a feeling I’ll never live it down.”

“You definitely won’t.”

He leans down before she can retort, and his lips are as soft and warm as they were the night before. His kiss is warm and sweet, thorough and electric, and before long she forgets her embarrassment and instead focuses only on the way his hair feels thick and soft between her fingers.

She’s practically panting by the time he pulls away, her eyelids fluttering open to find him looking down at her with an undeniably satisfied expression on his face, his kiss-bruised lips parted as his own chest heaves. “_So _glad you lied,” he murmurs before leaning down to quickly nip at her chin.

“I need to take a shower before we go back to the shop,” she says as he rolls out of bed and arches his back. “Do you mind if I use your stuff?”

“Do I mind if you smell like me for the rest of the day? Uh, no,” he winks cheekily as she rolls her eyes. “Towels are in the cabinet to the right of the toilet. I’m gonna make a breakfast run while you’re in there - muffins okay?”

“As long as Charles didn’t make them.”

He laughs as he tugs his shirt on, eyes twinkling with mirth. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t get within a city block of them,” he assures her as she sits up in bed. “Can I get you something other than coffee to drink? Like maybe tea or apple juice?”

Despite his obvious joking tone, she senses the note of sincerity beneath the question - like if she really wanted something other than coffee, he’d take no personal offense. And it’s like all of a sudden, every insecurity of his is laid out bare before her - and she knows he’s not only asking about coffee. “I want coffee,” she assures him, pouring every ounce of conviction into the words. “I’ve been wanting coffee for a long time now.”

He smiles, small and shy, and steps toward the bed to kiss her soundly once more. “You’ve only been up for five minutes,” he murmurs against her lips.

She smacks his shoulders and he laughs, recoiling backwards. “Go get breakfast and I’ll shower and then we can go straight to the shop to finish this mural up. I want to be done before ten.”

“You have other plans today?”

“Yeah, I’m spending the whole day with you, and I’d rather not fight self-entitled hipsters through the shop windows.”

“Fair enough!” he shouts through a broad grin, yanking his jeans up his legs and bounding out the bedroom door. “I’ll be right back!”

It isn’t until well after the front door has slammed shut, after the water has begun pouring out of his showerhead and the steam has enveloped her body, that the scent wafting off of her own skin reaches her consciousness -

She smells like fresh coffee grounds.


End file.
